Ward of
by Late to the Party
Summary: In this short, concept piece, Charname is surprised by the revelation that 'Gorion' is not at all who she thinks he is and the face behind the fictitious construct that is 'Gorion' is actually…! AU (with heavy spoilers).
1. I

"Hand over your ward and–"

'Gorion' tuned out the rest of the prattle: the fool Sarevok had taken the bait. With the ambush, the final moves of a gambit many years in the work began. 'Death' would only be temporary, and as the chief priestess of murder, which was more ludicrous: that she did or did not have a few tricks up her considerable sleeves? Had she not studied Kazgoroth the shapeshifting avatar of her lord? Did she not know the ancient rites of resurrection? If the Bhaalchild wanted to monologue, so could she. And there it was, her cue:

"You're a fool if you think I trust your benevolence."

The dance began.

_Many, many moons later…_


	2. II

"I see you still carry my belt. A keepsake?" The woman inquired of her former ward, a ward who currently sat hunched a few feet away, a campfire between them. As the sparks lifted and the flames lapped, the pair stared each other down, the younger of the two with her hood drawn up, her legs crossed at the shins, and the older the epitome of grace.

"Run this by me one more time." Gorion – Melissan –'s ward insisted.

"Which part?"

"The part where you are… you and not dead."

"You don't want to hear about your dead sire, your siblings?" There was a quiet, almost sardonic lilt to the question.

The girl shook her head. "I watched you die. You shouldn't be here."

Where the auburn-haired woman sat a heartbeat before now sat an aged man, his raspy voice reaching out as he had so many months before he had been so savagely cut down.

"A trick, an illusion." Her chestnut locks shook sharply.

And then the stories began, stories of her childhood that no other could have known; the fights they'd shared, that troubled period of adolescence, those times she'd misplaced her hairbrush, ripped her legging climbing a tree, her favourite fruit pies. All of it. As Gorion's visage faded, the girl spat that it was nothing more than mind-magic, a way to scry her memories.

Melissan, now as a woman of indeterminable age, spoke in that same tone the girl had heard so often before, scolding her, warning her not to place a toe out of line. Tears began to well. But Melissan wasn't finished, not by a long shot. Piece by piece, she began to outline a plan, a trap. It began with the city of Saradush…


	3. III

Gorion – Melissan's – ward cared little for the plan. Instead, she had other, more pressing questions. Questions like: "Where were you?" and "Why didn't you reveal yourself sooner?" and "How could you abandon me?" and "You left me and Imoen to Irenicus." The last was less of a question and the apex of the rising accusation that punctuated the quiet, climbing fury.

Melissan simply met her with an air that bordered on indifference: "Did I not raise you to be capable, independent and to think for yourself? Look at where you are now. I equipped you with everything you needed."

"You told me stories!" The younger woman retorted. "Sagas of adventure, romance, loss!"

"And what did you learn from all of that? I set you in a library holding the world's knowledge."

"I…" She hesitated, catching her lip between her teeth, "I saw their triumphs and mistakes."

"When it came to your own journeys, did those stories stay with you? Did everything I taught you simply vanish?"

She shook her head, almost curtly, her locks swishing sharply. The sparks from the fire coiled higher until they faded into nothingness.

Melissan took up a long twig and began to teach, illustrating the sparks as the children of her dead lord, the former god of murder, Bhaal. As the sparks ebbed, she gestured towards the campfire itself, and within the outskirts of Suldanessellar's forests, near the great stone heads, Melissan spoke of Bhaal's throne. She began with a story, of a mortal man, a thief, who tricked his two companions, and how they split the profile of the former god of death… that same man, the thief, the successor to the old god, became the god of murder and foresaw his own death… and the terrible plan he enacted. Now, Melissan explained, it was time for that tale to reach its climax.


	4. IV

A city, Saradush, walled, and flooded with refugees and its own citizens. A shortage of supplies, dark murmurs, whispers, and an air of paranoia, of fear. The knowledge of the sieging army just beyond the city walls, the slight buckling of the great shielding dome maintained by the battle mages with every catapult assault; the exchanges of arrow volleys… all while the 'lord protector' holed up within the citadel with his closest confidants, the soldier elite of the city, while the aristocrats held court in their townhouses, while others forced to wander the streets or camp out in the alleyways.

Melissan's ward surveyed the stale mix of putrid air, mulch, stone and mud, silk and sackcloth with a studied gaze. She was no stranger to this sort of sight; she wouldn't label herself an old hand, but she'd witnessed more than she cared to. The truth was, she'd felt the stirring in her blood, the pounding insistency, and she never felt more alive than in such moments: she could feel the building crescendo; there were others here, others like her, and murder would roam the streets, the killing fields of Saradush were a backdrop to a greater theatre, a divine theatre played out by demigods.

She had felt the same intensity in Baldur's Gate, before she and Sarevok met in battle in the undercity; upon the dais of one of their sire's old temples, beneath the sigil of the golden skull, Sarevok fell, his last breath breaking into golden dust, and she, bloodied and exhausted, collapsed to her knees.

Imoen was the one that delivered the final strike, hefting Kivan's fallen spear, the spear that failed to pierce Tazok; Tazok who spitted Kivan upon a cruel halberd. Tazok himself fell to a viciously barbed arrow, a gift from Eldoth. The slick, silvery goop coating the arrowhead reminded her of saliva, only there was something very wrong about it; there was this sweet aroma about it, but it left her feeling sick the first time she'd smelt it. After that, it became commonplace. The poison coursed through the half ogre, and as he slumped, drooling, his eyes rolled back, Imoen had simply parted his neck, all while Sarevok cleaved the air with his terrible zweihander.

Taken by fury, the joy of battle, Sarevok cut down those that stood against him, real and imagined, all while Melissan's ward hung back. Each advancing step drew Sarevok closer, his huge, armoured form bristling, his eyes wild, glowing, ready to consume her divine essence. But it was like in the stories Melissan had raised her on: luring the giant to his doom through trickery. None of them could even come close to matching Sarevok with the sword, or with brawn, so instead, they used his strength against them. That armour should have been nearly impenetrable, but something strange happened when Imoen thrust with all her strength. It wasn't just her strength, but something more, something latent awakening within her, and in that moment, realisation gripped the golden stare of their foe: Sarevok did not face one Bhaalspawn that day but two. With the might of their dead sire's spark within her, Imoen ended the life of their half-brother, leaving their few remaining companions to close in on the last of Sarevok's intimates.

Shar-Teel faced her father, Angelo, and Melissan's ward never saw the pair again. But that was another lifetime ago. Here, there were many other would-be Sarevoks, those sharing their dead sire's legacy, those with their own sparks…

She glanced at Imoen, Imoen who had remained with her all this time, who openly and constantly defied their dead sire's urging to rise up and murder her; Imoen, who could so easily be plotting and holding out until the end if it were anyone other than her. Irenicus hadn't broken them; neither had a dead god.

Imoen smiled back, not a hint of grimness on those soft lips, and only a flicker of steel behind those still-twinkling eyes, eyes that seemed to take in everything and still remain light.

"I am Melissan," the hooded woman before them announced in greeting.

Her ward inclined her head.


	5. V

'The Five' were a loose coalition of rival Bhaalspawn drawn together by a common goal: to slaughter their siblings. Indeed, only two other such pacts were known to exist: an unlikely trio consisting of a xvart, kobold and goblin, and herself and Imoen, to her knowledge. At any rate, 'The Five' saw her as a great enough threat that it refused to admit her and Imoen to their ranks and instead each of its members took their own turn at trying to kill them.

Melissan had warned them about each one, having gathered The Five together to begin with… just as she had gathered the majority of the surviving Bhaalspawn within Saradush under the guise of shielding them from the Five. Shepherding the other Bhaalspawn, whom she referred to to their faces as 'the Children' was what she spent so many of her resources on, through proxies, magic, whenever there was a sighting, supposed or otherwise…

Her ward questioned whether or not she was simply another pawn in her mentor's game, a piece to be sacrificed, and yet, what choice was there? To walk away? Her kin would hunt her down to the ends of Faerun and beyond. Even the planes were not a safe haven; she could no know refuge until the rest were dead. That is what Melissan told her, and that is what she believed. And so, she took the fight to her half-siblings, meeting each one of the Five according to the weaknesses Melissan laid out, according to her own intuition. None of them had learnt from Sarevok: first, Ilasera the Quick attempted an ambush outside the giant stone heads, but tipped off, she trapped the huntress and using the tricks she learnt from Eldoth Kron, the first of the Five met her end swiftly.

Next was Yaga-Shura, the fire-giant who sieged Saradush. Shortly after quitting the city, Melissan's ward heard word that the warlord had broken through the walls in an effort to prove himself greater than Sarevok and slay her; she travelled to his home in the mountains, slaughtered his guards and set a trap for him. Yaga-Shura, believing himself above the others whom the dead lord of murder sired, had invoked an ancient magic to remove his heart, effectively rendering himself as a lich with a phylactery; using Melissan's knowledge, she broke the wards and hexed the beating-heart, and when she met him in battle outside the fields of Saradush, the death knell sounded. A simple spell relaying a single word: 'now', and Imoen's dagger broke through the heart back in the fire giant's palace within the mountains. Into the wound she loosed a vial of poison, Eldoth's recipe, and there, upon the fields of Saradush, Yaga-Shura staggered and was struck by the same spear that slew Sarevok.

After that was Sendai the Drow, Abazigal the Blue Dragon, and finally, Balthazar, a monk who held back his weaknesses and secrets, as Melissan forewarned. In faking her and Imoen's deaths against Sendai, just as Melissan had faked her death as Gorion, the alliance of the Five fell apart. Abazigal struck first, ending Sendai, and then stormed Balthazar's hilltop fortress. The blue wyrm believed himself superior to all others, just as Yaga-Shura had, and that arrogance was his undoing: Balthazar, like the rest of the Five, had known their alliance would not last and prepared for it. In the end, he prepared better than his siblings, and then, a little under a month later, believing he was the last and hearing reports of no further sightings, his agents investigations coming up empty, he performed ritual suicide to seal and bind their dead sire's essence away, forever.

With Balthazar's death, just as Melissan had predicted, they found themselves, all three, within the Throne of Bhaal.


	6. Finale

Melissan, who had faked her death when Saradush fell, now faced the pair in her full glory, Amelyssan the Blackhearted, the head priestess of Bhaal.

During her time pursuing Irenicus, her ward had learnt to adopt the form of the Slayer, one of Bhaal's avatars, just as Melissan had studied Kazgoroth, the third of Bhaal's avatars. Drolly, Imoen toyed with Melissan's belt, wrapping and unwrapping it around her wrist, while she leant against the spear that had taken so many of their half-siblings' lives.

It was telling, perhaps, that Melissan had abandoned her guise as Gorion, yet something of him in her mannerisms remained. That slight stoop, with that benevolent chiding gaze, the brow that weighed so heavily, yet that twinkle within the eye and that air of scholarly knowing. All of that imprinted itself as a faint, ebbing echo upon the noble, high brow of Amelyssan, whose hair was drawn back and crowned with a helm of black feathers. Radiant and resplendent, she stood proud and regal, and beneath her stare, the two children she had recovered and reared looked up at her.

More than once since their meeting at the stone heads, Melissan's ward had wondered if 'Aliana' was fictitious, her supposed mother, written about in a letter 'Gorion' had left behind, a name mentioned rarely across the years. Was she simply a fabrication, or had she been real? Had there been a relationship, as 'Gorion' professed to be an 'occasional lover' of hers, or was that just another lie? Imoen knew nothing of her own mother but adopted a cocksure grin that lauded the absurdity of their current situation. They had been through hell together, quite literally, as they battled Irenicus within the Abyss, and now they were back in hell, in their father's realm.

This is where she would find out where Imoen's loyalties truly lay, her half-sister decided, noting that they were sisters by far more than 'blood'. Whatever it meant to be siblings whilst being demigods, whatever it meant to be mortal and alive, whatever it meant to love, here, at this end, she had a choice. She could feel the silent roar of their dead sire within her, coursing through her blood, his shadow hanging heavy over her. She knew Imoen could feel it too.

Drawing a shaky breath, she steadied herself and took a deliberate step to the side, distancing herself from her sister. Imoen shot her a look: in it was puzzlement, hurt, confusion, bewilderment, outrage, and that 'we're about to play a prank, right?'. That last was the same note that had carried them through childhood, that had allowed her to trust Imoen to destroy Yaga-Shura. Truthfully, she wasn't sure if Imoen really would go through with it.

"Is this the part in the story where our heroine proves she's more than her mentor?" Imoen interrupted laconically, a tinge of venom in her words, "This is the part where I'm supposed to decide whether or not to betray my sister, isn't it? Or where I start clutching my throat because she's poisoned me? I didn't come this far to turn on her. I don't know who you really are, but Gorion would never want it. I don't want it either, but Ole Mister G would want me to stop you from having it." Imoen cleared her throat. "So what are you going to do now?"

Amelyssan laughed lightly, without mirth, a tall spear clutched in one hand. "You think you're equipped to rule as the goddess of murder?" She adopted the tone and voice of Gorion, her words becoming aged. "How many years did you study power?"

It wasn't entirely mocking, not entirely, but it still stung. Her ward flinched as if she'd been struck physically. "You're not going to kill us," She announced quietly. "You're not going to murder us. You chose us to be yours." Bracing herself against the inevitable declaration she was a fool, that her mentor was a servant of murder, a small part of her held out hope as she remembered the warmth of Gorion's voice during his recollections, his lessons. "You gave us so much…"

Melissan's ward took a half step forwards, opening herself out. "Whoever sits on that thing," she gestured with her gloved finger, no weapons on her person, "will need a priesthood. I remember a story about three men who stood before the god of death…"

Imoen glanced at her and in spite of herself, she shook her head. "You want to throw knucklebones for the prize?"

Amelyssan remained silent. "I did not intend to let you have this throne, child." She spoke in her own voice and Gorion's.

"You rule from the shadows," Imoen's voice lashed out, her whole being tensing. "You've never shown your face."

Which meant, Melissan's ward reflected, that they were the only two still living to have seen her face. With that, her heart sank. "I don't want it either," She allowed finally, to the anguished screaming of her sire's shadow. "You told me tales of adventure, but never one where I would be prepared for this. Irenicus – he wanted to be a god, to drain that elven tree. This… this is different. I don't want it. I just… things can never go back to how they were, just… Irenicus, he had this room where there were musty old tomes overflowing from dusty shelves. I couldn't even cry but my heart wept. All I wanted… all I wanted was to go home. Not to Candlekeep but to you. I killed for you, to avenge you, to stop Sarevok. I – I never would have if he hadn't, maybe, but… and now you're here, but you aren't you but you are. I don't… please don't make me have to choose between killing you and living.

"I can't stop thinking of how you held me, of all those happy years. You kept leaving but you always came back. There's still so much you have to teach me, so much I have to learn. I don't care what Imoen says; take that damn thing if you want it, just… let us be a family again, the three of us."

"Did you really think I could become the goddess of murder, with murder as my essence, and not be true to what I am?" Amelyssan asked without harshness, her proud eyes locked upon her ward.

"Yes…" The young woman whispered, her eyes closing. "Please, I loved you."

"Did you think love is enough to overcome death? Didn't you learn from Irenicus?" Her mentor leaned towards her. "All those stories and you still don't understand… the only victory is won by death."

Setting her chin stubbornly, the younger woman faced her mentor. "No. That isn't the point of those stories at all. Victory is won through courage, by standing up, by being smart, by sticking with your friends and forging a bond greater than death. That's how me and Immy made it through – because we love each other."

"Even now, she's preparing to betray you, child. Don't you see her hand reaching for her dagger; as we're distracted, she'll strike and as you stand in shock, she'll turn on you. Where is your bond then?"

"No! That isn't who she is. Bhaal's _gone_. All we have to do is stand together and it's over; he's no more. If we murder each other, we'll be reviving him. Please, please let him die. Tell me about my mother, about Aliana. Tell me about… you. Im, c'mon, help me out here. This is what you want too, isn't it? Irenicus is dead; we killed him, we had our revenge. Sarevok's dead too. They're all dead."

"She isn't." Imoen pointed out grimly. "How can you not see she's behind all of it? She knew you were strong enough to be a threat to her so she manipulated you."

"She could have killed us as children. Are you even hearing yourself, Immy? I'm not fighting you. If that's what it means, you're going to have to kill me." Tears streaming down her cheeks, she stepped backwards, tripped over her boots and landed heavily on her rump. Taking her head in her hands, she refused to look at either of them.

"Er…" Imoen scratched her head, her mouth pulling to one side. "Sis…?" She cleared her throat and shrugged helplessly at Amelyssan, who eyerolled.

"What about you?" The former priestess directed her unflinching gaze at Imoen.

Imoen shrugged again. "I don't care about that. I just don't want you to have it."

"Me, or Gorion?" The last was said in the latter's sagely voice.

Imoen pursed her lips. "Well… I suppose Ole Mister G wouldn't be so bad, but murder?"

"Stop being an idiot," Melissan's ward grated through tears and clenched teeth. "The story let them choose the profile. It's just to do with death. It doesn't have to be murder."

"Yeah, but the other two are still around." Imoen scratched the top of her head again, glancing this way and that. "Seriously sis, you're embarrassing yourself. Stand up."

The younger woman curled into a tighter ball.

"If I assume a profile other than murder, would that be acceptable to you, Imoen?" Instead of ice, it was that sagely voice.

"Sure, fine, whatever." Imoen sighed. "Just… just tell her to stand up, would you?"

"Child, that's enough."

Melissan's ward sat bolt upright, eyes wide.

"I accept your… conditions," Amelyssan's lips twisted slightly, "my dear adepts, and in exchange, you shall remain loyally mine."

Her ward was already nodding. Imoen shrugged, sighed, then inclined her head once. "Fine, as long as we – we're not calling you 'mom', okay?"

"I wouldn't mind." Her ward said in the smallest voice, now cross-legged on the abyssal floor.

Imoen rolled her eyes. "Right, I'm out of here. Um, where's the privy?"

Amelyssan's piercing gaze momentarily found the green clouds above the throne, and she announced calmly that both girls would be bond to her, and she to them, and as her ward nodded slowly, she ascended the dais, succeeding her dead lord. Imoen had already departed the chamber. As her mentor took the last few steps, green flame enveloped her, as her ward watched, her hands splayed across her mouth, the final chapter of one story closing as another opened. In none of the tales Gorion shared, tales of lovers, of dragons, of trickery, guile, heroism, and sacrifice, had the heroine or hero thrown a tantrum or started balling their eyes out, but somehow, she was okay with that. She had faced down Sarevok and Irenicus, stood against her siblings, against many others who wanted to use and discard her, against those who wished her dead, and she had stood firm. But none of them had changed her swaddling cloth, burped her, taught her how to read and write, bound up her gazed knee, taught her about her changing body, scolded her for accidentally getting drunk and nursing her through her first hangover; none of them had seen her at her best and her worst, and none of them had sat her on their knee and inspired her with the tales that had given her the courage to stand against the monsters of the world and live.

Nothing her dead sire had to offer could compare to that, or to the promise of having her mentor back. Maybe when she was older she'd regret her choices, but right now she was sick of figuring things out on her own, sick of having to be strong with and for Immy, and even if wandering the road for days left her footsore, in dire need of a bath, hiding out under trees to duck the rain and craving a campfire and hot meal, at least she didn't have the responsibility of being a god and other gods and demons trying to destroy her. Besides… there were still her sire's two other companions with thrones of their own.

_Fin_


End file.
